We're Gonna Rock Down to Electric Avenue

Having just come off a 50 hour electricity fast (this was not voluntary), I have few thoughts. When the electricity went off Sunday around 5:00 due to the remnants of hurricane Ike, I really had no idea the extent of the destruction. And other than fretting about a possible loss of about $400 worth of food in my fridge and two freezers-I was OK with the whole thing. In the end, thanks to ice and then my dad's generator connected to a freezer, we only lost about $40 worth of stuff and about half of that was that stuff that should have been thrown out anyway-we were never going to eat it! Praise God! And those of you with wells and septic systems know that there is no flushing or washing since there is no well pump so that got a little gross but nothing we couldn't handle. So here are the really cool things that happened thanks to our electric being out.
1. Multiple opportunities to help family and strangers clean up debris in their yards. Since we only have tiny trees in our big yard we had no stuff to clean up. We met our widowed neighbor down the street and got to help her with sticks and limbs. The kids were great helpers too.
2. Andy has had 3 days off of school (so far, possibly more) and Muffin had 1.
3. We spent the night at Jim & Sue's one night-we never get the chance to do that so it was like a big sleepover!
4. Friends and family helping out. My friend Carolyn offered her camper for us to use and even came over one dark night to help me move food from my fridge to my deep freeze and stock it with ice.
5. Having dinner at Johnny and Carey's house (see pictures above). These are friends we've known for years but have never been to each other's house. They had power and invited anyone who didn't to have dinner at their house. Is that showing the love of Christ or what? And I've heard more of these stories from other people too-doing laundry at a friend's house, sleeping over, sharing a freezer-whatever is needed. It is such an encouragement to hear so much good around us.
6. The quiet and stillness of a non-electric house. I couldn't vacuum or mop if I wanted to so everything just seemed to slow down. The distant hum of all our neighbors' generators at night was somehow comforting to me!
So, we're back online and slowly getting back to the pace of everyday life. There are still others in our area without power though-maybe I'll go hang out at their house instead of vacuuming!